The Greatest Samurai Films
September 11, 2026
Every samurai film reviewed on this site, ranked. Kurosawa, Kobayashi, Gosha and Okamoto, and a genre whose masterpieces are nearly all arguments against the thing they depict.
Tag: Black and White
Black and white is not the absence of color; it is a different instrument. This tag collects reviews of monochrome films, classic and deliberate-modern, and what shooting without color does to light, mood, and attention.
Black and WhiteThe Greatest Film Noir
September 11, 2026
Every film noir reviewed on this site, ranked. Huston, Wilder, Reed, Polanski and Hanson, plus the neo-noir and science fiction descendants that kept the form alive after the studios abandoned it.
2010sRoma (2018) Review
September 11, 2026
Roma (2018) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Cuaron wrote, directed, shot and co-edited a black and white film about the domestic worker who raised him, in Spanish and Mixtec, with a non-professional lead. It won Director,…
1990sMan Bites Dog (1992) Review
September 11, 2026
Man Bites Dog (1992) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A Belgian film crew follows a serial killer, films his work, and gradually starts helping. Made by three film students for almost nothing, and it is the…
1960sThe Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) Review
September 11, 2026
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. John Ford spent thirty years building the Western myth and then made the film that takes it apart, shot on a soundstage in black…
1950s3:10 to Yuma (1957) Review
September 11, 2026
3:10 to Yuma (1957) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A rancher takes two hundred dollars to hold an outlaw in a hotel room until a train arrives, and almost the entire film is the two of…
1970sKings of the Road (1976) Review
September 10, 2026
Kings of the Road (1976) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Two men drive a repair truck along the East German border servicing dying cinemas, for a hundred and seventy-five minutes, with almost no plot. It was…
1960sIn Cold Blood (1967) Review
September 10, 2026
In Cold Blood (1967) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Richard Brooks shot Capote's book in the actual house where the murders happened, cast two unknowns for their resemblance to the killers, and used seven of the…
1960sThe Manchurian Candidate (1962) Review
September 10, 2026
The Manchurian Candidate (1962) rates 10 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Frankenheimer made a political thriller that is also a comedy, a nightmare and a story about a mother, released it thirteen months before Dallas, and Angela Lansbury…
1960sLolita (1962) Review
September 10, 2026
Lolita (1962) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Kubrick adapted a novel about a predator by removing everything the Production Code forbade, which was most of the subject. He later said that had he understood the censorship…
AmbitionAll About Eve (1950) Review
September 10, 2026
All About Eve (1950) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. The best script ever written about ambition, in a film where everybody is intelligent and nobody has to be dim for the schemer to win. Fourteen nominations,…
1940sNow, Voyager (1942) Review
September 10, 2026
Now, Voyager (1942) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A woman boards a cruise as her mother's property and comes back a person. The most famous cigarette in cinema, and a last line that refuses the ending…